Faculty Spotlight: Sam Mitrani

Sam MitraniDepartment: History

It was Sam Mitrani's childhood, split between time with his father and mother, that
sparked his curiosity about history.

"I lived part-time in Vermont with no running water or electricity with my hippie
father, and part-time in New York with my mother," he said. "In New York, I saw rich
and poor areas and ways of life, and the racial segregation of that city, while in
Vermont I saw the remnants of the counterculture and people with a very different
outlook on life. I wanted to know from a young age what caused the differences in
wealth, way of life, and attitudes that prevailed in these different places and how
they had evolved and changed over time.

"In high school and especially in college, I came to appreciate history as the most
satisfying discipline for seeing the human world in its process of constant evolution,
to try to understand how and why we got to where we are."

Before coming to College of DuPage, Mitrani taught as an adjunct at the University
of Illinois-Chicago, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Purdue Calumet,
Morton College, Saint Xavier University, and American Public University System. He
also worked as an independent researcher at the Center for Labor and Community Research
in Chicago and taught SAT and ACT prep at C2, a competitor of Kaplan in Schaumburg.

Mitrani loves being in the classroom, and he enjoys sharing what he's learned and
his perspective based upon his own past. Since history is the study of human beings,
he is inspired by the ordinary people who have struck out, often at great risk to
themselves, to improve their world -- the people who made the American revolution,
fought to end slavery, won public education, fought for Social Security and the eight-hour
day, and smashed Jim Crow. And Mitrani hopes his students find a similar fascination
with these people.

"The most important broad lesson my students can take from my classes is to see history
as a process that is still unfolding and that they can play a role in shaping," he
said. "Things will not remain as they are, they never do -- though I certainly don't
know how they will change. I don't just mean technology, but the broader society,
economic structures, political system and culture. Many people take the current world
as given, somehow a product of human nature, but if there is one lesson in history,
it is that humans have lived in extremely diverse ways, and that human societies are
constantly changing, sometimes very slowly, but other times very quickly.

"The more that students are aware of this, the more I hope they will be able to help
shape a world they want to live in, rather than simply go along for the ride and see
only their narrow, individual horizons."

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